


forever ain't half the time

by comelayinmybed



Series: no limit to your love [2]
Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: F/F, LOHBTOS, no limit to your love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-09
Updated: 2018-11-09
Packaged: 2019-08-20 22:17:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16564169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/comelayinmybed/pseuds/comelayinmybed
Summary: Early on Sunday morning, Nicole felt Waverly’s hands caress her neck and sweep to her chin, a soft kiss laid upon her lips, so gently she almost couldn’t decipher if it were real or she was dreaming. But another soon followed and just as she was about to open her eyes, her mouth so slightly to offer more communion, she heard a whisper.“I’m going to marry you someday, Nicole Haught…”





	forever ain't half the time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shaketheheavens](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shaketheheavens/gifts).



> My highest praise remains for @LuckyWantsToKnow who insisted I only credit her as a beta on this one. As always, none of this would exist without her.

**Fall 2019.**

“I know they may say I have the wrong priorities but the ssss... _sleep_ was so good last night,” Waverly yawned heavily against Nicole’s shoulder.

“I hope it’s because I exhausted you beforehand?” Nicole inquired with a smile.

“Oh babe, you certainly did that,” Waverly confirmed, angling away from Nicole’s body in a long, full-body stretch, “but just being **_home_** in _our bed_ is amazing. I’ve missed it so much.”

Nicole leaned after Waverly’s sway in an effort to pull her close again. “I’ve missed it too. I’ve missed _you_.”

“I tried to rationalize that we got Bulshar within a year, but every single day without you was a bit torturous. I can’t help it, I need you, baby,” Waverly admitted, acquiescing to Nicole’s tug, falling back into her arms.

“I need you too, Waves,” Nicole kissed her cheek, “And I need a shower,” kisses behind her ear, “…and breakfast…” more kisses, “…and we really need to get on the road soon if we’re going to make our cabin in Hope Valley by this evening with your planned stops along the way for apple-picking and corn mazes,” and another kiss or two down Waverly’s neck to her shoulder.

“You get in the shower and I will get breakfast going. Scrambles?”

“If you don’t mind making mine too, but if it’s a big deal…” Nicole trailed off as she got up from the bed and moved swiftly towards the bathroom, Waverly left to drool at her naked form.

“It’s not,” she said dismissively as she waited until she heard the shower door open and subsequently close, steam ebbing from the cracked bathroom door.

Twenty minutes later Waverly was standing in front of the stove, two skillets full of an array of veggies, but one holding bacon crumbles as well, when Nicole came into the kitchen, wrapping her arms around the brunette from behind. She nuzzled into Waverly’s neck and inhaled deeply. “Baby, you smell so good, better than bacon.”

“I smell like sex and the airplane I was on for seven hours yesterday, but you’re sweet,” Waverly said as she turned and pecked a kiss against Nicole’s lips before rotating back around to the scrambles she was finishing up. “Get me plates and pour us some coffee?”

“You don’t want tea?” Nic queried, brow furrowed at a seemingly benign development from Waverly’s long absence.

“Oh of course, but I didn’t know what we had in stock and if coffee is easier, then that’s fine. Beggars can’t be choosers,” she noted in cliche.

“This is one thing you don’t have to beg for, Waves…” Nicole smirked as she pulled the various boxes of tea down from a top shelf, which she realized Waverly would have had difficulty reaching this morning. She blamed herself internally for being insensitive. She had put them up a few weeks after Waverly had left on assignment the first time because it was too hard to see them every morning.

Nicole had done that with a lot of things. She kept all her clothes in the closet of the extra bedroom, so she never had to open the one in their room, but sometimes she would open the door and the scent would hit her hard, choking her emotionally. She put Waverly’s perfume in a bureau and only opened it occasionally. She carted hairspray and lotions and makeup into little nooks so that they were easier to ignore when she was particularly homesick for her person. The tea was always right beside her coffee, obviously, and one day she had knocked an entire canister of it to the floor while she was running late, overcompensating by rushing through her required cup to start the day, and the overwhelming scent of earl grey and sunshine herbal had stifled everything but Nicole’s tears for a week. So she had put the remaining bags and loose tea into airtight containers and shoved them on a top shelf - _out of sight, out of mind_ , she convinced herself briefly.

But now Waverly was back. Maybe it wasn’t forever, or for very long at all, but she was here with Nicole, and they were going to finally get to enjoy just a little bit of time acting like a normal couple again.  She was pulled from the hazy dream of their impending weekend by a soft hand on her outstretched arm, “Just the regular earl grey is fine, babe…” confirmed Waverly as Nicole looked down to see herself offering eight variations of tea. She had started picking up flavors she thought Waverly would like about a month after she sequestered the original offenders, an appeasement to the sore motives of her brain versus her heart.

They sat in silence and ate, stealing glances at each other, holding hands intermittently between bites and sips. It was so quiet and lovely, thought Waverly, so different from every morning she’d had for the last fifteen months. On the task force, someone always needed something - a background check on one suspect, a metric from the latest outstanding warrants, a rundown of the impending check-in with their newest informant. Waverly leaned back from the table and sighed. Then she remarked, casually if not profoundly, “It’s so nice that you don’t want anything from me…”

Nicole squeezed Waverly’s hand and leaned in, placing a soft kiss to her cheek. “I wouldn’t say that’s entirely true. I want you to shower so we can leave for Hope Valley, babe…but only when you’re ready,” she added.

Waverly nodded and stood, grabbing the plate from where she had just finished, but was met with Nicole’s hand on the same. “I’ve got this; I’ll clean up. Go on and jump in the shower, but let me know if you’re missing something. I tried to put it all back but…”

“We’re going to talk about that on the way up, okay?” Waverly’s eyes lifting up to Nicole’s in anticipation.

“If you want, we will.”

“I’ll be ready by the time you’ve got the kitchen done and the car packed. We are taking the Subaru, right?”

“Yes, at your special request, Ms. Earp,” Nicole confirmed, tipping two fingers in a mock salute at her brow.. Waverly just chuckled as she moved to the bathroom and noticed the neat, organized manner of shampoo, shower gel, razor and other accoutrement. She smiled softly and wondered how long it took Nicole to put everything back in its place when she’d announced she was on a plane out of Tokyo two days ago.

* * *

They had almost made it to Davis before Waverly asked the question that had been gnawing at her since the tea incident.

“So did you just…put everything up that reminded you of me? In my…in our house, Nicole?”

Nicole cleared her throat, but kept her eyes trained on the highway, a long pause before she decided on her reply. “Is that bad?”

“I never considered how hard it must have been to have everything around you that constantly reminded you I was gone. I was the opposite. I had almost nothing. I clung desperately to your clothes, your letters, anything that brought me the slightest bit closer to you. I thought Wynonna was going to ban me from the communal areas when I went two months without washing your hoodie…”

Nicole tugged Waverly’s hand up from her thigh, where their fingers had been intertwined the majority of the trip, and placed light kisses on her knuckles in reassurance. “I didn’t wash the sheets on the bed for weeks. I didn’t want anything to seem like you weren’t just, I don’t even know…out working late? I could convince myself you weren’t going to be gone for months as long as I could see your things everywhere. Then one morning, I knocked every bit of tea off the counter and into the floor. I was already running late, so I left it, and when I came home, the entire house smelled like the morning you left and I just crumpled into a sobbing mess on the kitchen floor.”

“Oh baby…” Waverly lamented, pulling Nicole’s hand to her mouth now, offering comfort in return. “I don’t think either of us realized how incredibly hard it was going to be.”

“No fucking clue, Waves…and I just couldn’t break down like that all the time…so I…I took your stuff and I just put it away as it would start to beckon to my loneliness.  I’m sure that seems really asinine of me, but I didn’t know what else to do to just…quell the pain of not having you.”

“We had just found each other.”

“And I never want you to think I didn’t want you to do this. I’m so so proud of you, Waverly. But damn, a few months of being so desperately in love with you, and **_having you_ ** after everything we went through and it…”

“It tore me apart too. I just wanted to talk to you and learn everything I could about you and tell you everything that was happening and none of that was possible.”

“I know, I felt the same way. But talking when we could and the emails, and the letters…old-fashioned letters, sent to a PO Box, well…that was kind of clandestine and sexy as hell…” admitted Nicole.

“I thought that was pretty brilliant on my part. Besides, it’s not like we were selling government secrets.”

“You did tell me how when I do that thing with my tongue that you…AHH!” Nicole yelped as Waverly pinched her thigh.

“Nicole Haught, you will remember you’re driving or pull over because we cannot start talking about the things you do with your tongue without -“

“Without what, Waverly?” plied Nicole with innuendo dripping from her tone.

“You know, we never did have sex in this car…”

“And she’s all clean and virginal now, as I was planning on selling her until you said she had _too much sentimental value_.”

Waverly slowly turned her head around the entire circumference of the vehicle, her tongue trailing her lower lip as if in deep, explicit thought. “Pull over.”

“What?”

“Pull over.”

“Are you serious? We’re going to miss the corn maze if we - “

“Pull over, Nicole. We’re going to deflower this Subaru right now.”

Seven minutes later, Nicole had secured a fairly innocuous dirt road to which she swerved the Subaru back towards the main highway just in case someone stumbled upon them. But as soon as the car was in park, neither paid any mind to the possibility of that happening. Waverly flung her tiny body over the front seat, landing in the back, pulling Nicole behind her, though not nearly as smoothly, and they both fell partially into the floorboard before recovering to the backseat. Waverly grasped Nicole’s flannel, pushing it off her shoulders quickly and untucking the white undershirt as quickly as her hands could move from one garment to the next, breathing a wet pant against Nicole’s neck.

In truth, Waverly half expected Nicole to protest her advances. It was right around lunch on a Friday, everyone heading out of the city for the weekend. They were maybe three miles off the main highway and they had barely even kissed before she popped the button of Nicole’s jeans. But the only sound in the Subaru was Nic’s desperate moan and that was all the encouragement Waverly needed. She used her knees to push Nicole’s thighs apart and steadied herself with one hand on the seat cushion as she pushed inside, her lips drawing Nicole’s earlobe into her mouth, whispering, “I’ve missed you so fucking much.”

It was messy and hot and Nicole found it useless when she tried to utter a response. She let Waverly consume her, both mind and body, the way Waverly felt under her fingertips, the soft skin she had sought out beneath a fuzzy sweater, under ribs and above hips, pressing in the same rhythm Waverly created inside her. Nicole was enraptured by this Waverly above her, the look of determination, sweat beading on her forehead. “God you’re so beautiful. I love you like this. I love you in every way,” she finally stuttered out, as the pace quickened from Waverly to impossible levels of pleasure radiating from her depths.

Her fingers dug into Waverly’s skin more, creating crescent moons, which only made Waverly moan into Nicole’s ear herself. She pressed her hips into Nicole’s purposefully, her thrusts rendering Nicole incoherent. The windows steamed into a creation of their own private world and Waverly sunk deeper against Nicole, her entire body taking possession, as Nicole cried out, coming so hard that Waverly thought she had actually hurt her for a moment. But she cooed sweet assurances against Nicole’s brow as she brought her down until they both lay quiet and spent in the backseat.

“Are you okay?” Waverly whispered finally.

“I am…amazing…beyond…” Nicole trailed out.

“We’re just getting started, Nic. We have three days of pure, uninterrupted bliss in the mountains, and I intended on taking every advantage of you.”

Nicole chuckled and offered Waverly a sloppy kiss, which she eagerly accepted. Then she slowly leaned up, still in a haze, but determined to make the apple farm Waverly had mentioned two months ago when they planned this trip. “We should go, babe,” she nuzzled against Waverly’s neck.

“I suppose so, but always know we christened this Subaru on…” Waverly narrowed her eyes into focus and looked at the map on the electronic console,”…I-80 and it was magnificent.”

“It sure was,” Nicole assured low and smoky.

* * *

Three hours and two bushels of apples later, they pulled up to their cabin and Waverly squealed with glee. “It’s just like I imagined, all rustic and warm and…sexy…”

Nicole shook her head slowly, “Yes, that’s what the brochure said specifically,” she sarcastically replied.

Waverly slapped her arm softly and opened the car door with enthusiasm, almost skipping to the steps, waiting impatiently for Nicole to unlock the doors. She scurried inside as Nicole turned to the Subaru to gather their luggage and a smile of sheer joy formed on Nicole’s face as she heard Waverly ooh and ahh over the fireplace and buffalo plaid bedding and iron skillets of the tiny kitchen, all in one giant room; the only separated area being the bath and shower which Nicole noted was only going to be used as a necessity since it was tiny. It was freezing and Nicole sat their bags on the bed and moved to the back to gather wood, already cut and ready, to build them a cozy fire for the evening.

Waverly surveyed the kitchen and concluded, “I believe I can make the apple pies here. I’m glad I stopped and picked up everything before we left, but this looks doable. Oh babe, wouldn’t it be awesome to bake them on the fire?!”

“I think maybe just using the oven is okay this time, Waves,” Nicole suggested as she came up and wrapped her arms around her girlfriend, pulling her close, “Besides, I don’t want to be worried about them burning if we get distracted,” she mentioned as she began a trail of kisses up Waverly’s neck.

“Ah…oh…good idea,” Waverly confirmed distractedly, “but maybe I won’t start on those until we take a…a nap…” she suggested, knowing full well there was no sleeping in their near future.

* * *

Waverly made pies that evening in the one room cabin as Nicole read _Gender and the Politics of History_ to her from the oversized chair by the fire. She sipped an Irish coffee and relished the smell of the apples and the fire and Waverly, constantly restraining herself from pulling her girlfriend away from the task at hand and back to the bed. She knew it was probably antiquated to think of Waverly as her wife, cooking in their kitchen, but she couldn’t help letting her mind wander to a few years from now. Hopefully they’d be married because Nicole **wanted** to marry Waverly, wanted to be her wife. Waverly would finally be at home for longer than a week or so before being sent across the globe on another assignment. They could watch movies and snuggle and sleep in on Sundays and go for brunch with Chrissy and Jeremy, and even Wynonna and Doc. Nicole rolled her eyes a little at the thought of a domesticated Wynonna and Doc. “Never in a million years,” she whispered to herself.

But marrying Waverly, that needed to happen. They had even discussed how they could redecorate the condo come next spring perhaps, gawking at all the handmade, incredibly expensive furniture they had seen at the roadside antique shops on the way to Hope Valley. If not the condo, then at least when they had a house. And someday that was going to happen because Nicole was so in love with Waverly. She couldn’t see anything in her future without Waverly. Maybe they’d get a big house, a dog…she didn’t need to have kids, but she thought Waves would be such a great mom…so maybe that far in their future…but today, history books and apple pies and her sexy girlfriend who was standing in a tiny kitchen concentrating on cinnamon measurements. Nicole was so fucking happy and she was going to have to to show Waverly just how much, well as soon as the pies were cooling at least, Nicole grinned at her plans.

Waverly proudly presented a slice of the confection a bit later to Nicole and even if it had been atrocious, Nicole would’ve offered her best review. Luckily it turned out quite divine and so no sway of truth was required.

“You did such an amazing job, Waves. I am going to need another piece after I work this one off,” sighed Nicole in contentment.

Waverly took the plate of crumbs from Nicole’s hands and laid it on the table, and she straddled Nicole and wrapped her arms around her shoulders, leaning in to kiss her fervently. “…you taste good…” she said absently, “…and how are you planning to do that?”

Nicole slid her hands along Waverly’s thighs, over her ass, and to the small of her back, pulling her closer. She ran her tongue along Waverly’s bottom lip, earning a  last taste of the apple pie, and dropped kisses on her chin and then her neck before responding, “I was thinking about going for a hike.”

Waverly tickled Nicole’s side, right below her ribcage, and the redhead yelped and shrank back into the curve of the chair, but then she rubbed the spot and kissed Nicole gently, “I have a better idea…”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, you can help me clean this tiny kitchen and then we can…” she trailed off as she let her hands wander across Nicole’s abs and up to explore everything she could touch within the confines of the shirt, “…go to bed.”

Nicole’s fingers had long ago wandered under Waverly’s sweater as well and were sliding under the hem of her bra, causing both of their breaths to catch in their throats at the soft caresses evan as they moved to more deliberate touch.

“Or we could go to bed now and get up early,” Nicole suggested, as she effortlessly unclasped Waverly’s bra, a light gasp escaping at the newly revealed warm skin.

A moan fell from Waverly’s mouth in response before she could finally croak out, “That…let’s do that…”

* * *

Waverly awoke late on Saturday and twisted onto her back in a long, luxurious yawn. She was sore, the best kind of sore, a sore she hadn’t had in entirely too long. A gratified smile broke across her face at the memory of the previous night and how it was somehow close to noon before her body had even considered waking to start the day.

Nicole was nowhere to be found and Waverly figured it was because she was an early riser by design, but also because she had carried on with a personal schedule for months without Waverly. In some ways it would be hard to adjust to being together now. They had never shared more than a few weeks together and suddenly Waverly found herself worrying about their future again.

 _What if Nicole hates that I sleep in? What if she feels like she’s wasting time and she can’t waste time, so she’s just out living a full day’s life before I even crawl from bed?? What if she’s the kind of person who has to make excuses for me? “Oh you know Waverly isn’t an early riser! She’ll never be one to come out to breakfast with us!”_ She could hear Nicole telling their friends, making excuses just like she realized Nic had probably been doing for the last year. Her heart clenched.

And right at that moment, Nicole opened the door to cabin and a beagle came bounding in behind her, jumping on the bed with Waverly, who immediately scoped up the pup and lavished it with snuggles. “Who’s your friend, Nic?”

“This is BoomerGal and she’s out exploring with her mom, but told me she needed to come say hi to you when I met them getting coffee,” Nicole said as she leaned over and gave Waverly a kiss to her forehead.

“She’s adorable!” Waverly exclaimed as she rubbed the pup’s belly and immediately frowned when an enthusiastic call from a cabin or so away caused the beagle to jump from the bed and swiftly exit.

Nicole glanced out and waved at BoomerGal’s owner congenially before closing the door and returning to her carrier full of muffins and coffee. She handed Waverly one of each and then sat on the edge of the bed, sitting her own coffee on the side table. “I didn’t know you loved dogs so much.”

“I’m definitely a dog person. What about you?”

“Cats…” Nicole said as she shook her head in confirmation, but not making eye contact with Waverly.

“Really?” Waverly said as she twisted her head, her eyes eagerly searching Nicole’s despite the obfuscation.

“I had a cat when I graduated the Academy, but Calamity Jane was more fond of Nedley than me, so she eventually just moved in with him and Chrissy.”

“Wait, CJ was your cat?? How did I never know that?!”

“It’s never come up, I suppose. Anyways, I think maybe I want a dog the next time…ya know, when…If we ever wanted to…” Nicole didn’t know exactly where she was going and she didn’t want to assume Waverly was going to want pets or…well or anything. _How did we not talk about this in all our emails over the last year?_ Nicole wondered.

“I do.”

“You do?”

“I want us to get a dog. Not right now. But you know, someday, when we’re actually together for longer than a few weeks at at time, when we’re...” Waverly mused over her coffee cup before deciding on a the prudent timeline, “...really living together.”

“Yeah?” Nicole smiled crookedly.

Waverly sat down her coffee then and scooted over towards Nicole, wrapping her arms around her from behind, leaning her chin on Nicole’s shoulder. “I want to do everything with you, Nicole.”

Nicole turned to her and leaned into Waverly’s embrace, then gently pushed them both back down into the bed, lying there quietly for a few moments just pondering the future.

“Someday,” Waverly whispered again a few moments later, “but today I just want to go to this festival you promised you’d take me to, and eat some local cuisine and enjoy the chill of this lovely fall weather, and think about how we’ll come back in a decade with our babies, all boring and suburban, and remember how we were wild and messy with new love, this first time here together. How our lives were anything but our own, and yet we were destined to be together, no matter what, my love, my life…”

“My life…” Nicole whispered against Waverly, and began to kiss her chest, right at her heart, her ‘good’ ear laying against it to hear it beat strong and sure.

* * *

A few hours later, they walked among the crowds, vendors peddling an array of homemade items from leather belts to herbal lotions. Waverly pulled Nicole from one tent to another, trying on a handmade scarf here, a melded silver bracelet there, and watching as Nicole conversed with the men and women at each vestibule. Nicole could make conversation with everyone, about everything, and she would always poke at the round bellies of the babies and play peekaboo with them, unaware of how Waverly’s heart swelled with the idea of her being a mother someday to their own. How she was so capable in eliciting giggles and tender moments and…Waverly couldn’t help but see how she was destined to be a mom…how their children would be so incredibly loved.

When Waverly ran into one of her old friends from college unexpectedly, the warmth crept into Nicole’s heart just as quickly. Perry’s little boy grabbed Waverly by the pinky and drug her off to face-painting, both of them returning ten minutes later with unicorns and dinosaurs on their cheeks. Waverly’s eyes sparked so quickly at everything Joey said and Nicole could see their future so clearly, their “ten years from now”, as Waverly had said that morning. Waverly was going to be such a wonderful mother.

Hours later with the smell of barbecue and leaves, finally sharing a lemonade and a rest on a blanket in the grass, the sun warmed them after a chilly morning. The sky was a brilliant blue, the bluest Nicole could remember witnessing as she lay across Waverly, and she wondered if it was just that her other senses were compensating for the lack of hearing or if the world was that much brighter with their love in it. She didn’t want to be a sentimental fool, but nothing had ever been quite so bright before _Waverly_.

Waverly ran her fingers through Nicole’s hair and closed her eyes, her mind drifting back to this morning, when she had just caught herself talking them being married. They had been together a little over a year now and if there was one thing she knew, they were meant to be...a forever kind of love. It felt fantastical to say out loud, which is why she had opted for just “living together” when pressed in the moment, but she couldn’t be bothered to care anymore if it seemed impetuous or fast. And she didn’t really care if they got married, as long as they were somewhere in the world sharing every day of their lives. Seeing all the young couples walking through the crowds, just like them, some she could tell wouldn’t make it six months. But the way Nicole’s thumb always brushed her knuckles and her hand squeezed Waverly’s in assurance, and yet let her go free when Waverly skittered ahead in anticipation…it was perfect, trusting. Something Waverly had never been given and certainly had taken quite a while to learn to receive. But she trusted Nicole and Nicole trusted her. They relied on each other and it was going to make them strong. It already had. Every phone call and Skype session over the last year and how her heart had physically burned within her chest at the absence of Nicole…it all was just reassurance that they were meant to be. They were a pair.

* * *

Early on Sunday morning, Nicole felt Waverly’s hands caress her neck and sweep to her chin, a soft kiss laid upon her lips, so gently she almost couldn’t decipher if it were real or she was dreaming. But another soon followed and just as she was about to open her eyes, her mouth so slightly to offer more communion, she heard a whisper.

“I’m going to marry you someday, Nicole Haught…”

Nicole hoped the pressing of her eyelids tighter wouldn’t be noticed, that she wouldn’t smile, could somehow withhold her joy from Waverly momentarily, and if she did break, that a third kiss would mask it.

“I’m going to marry you and we’re going to have a splendid, glorious life together,” Waverly continued, her mouth covering Nicole’s once more.

“Yes.”

Waverly’s eyes grew wide, and though her hands continued to hold Nicole’s face, she leaned away slightly, focusing on the reply. “What?”

“Yes, we are going to have a splendid, glorious life together. Yes, I’m going to marry you someday. Yes,” Nicole simply confirmed.

“I thought you were asleep…I didn’t mean right now,” admitted Waverly.

“I know.”

“Okay, good. But I see us; we’re married. You’re going to be my wife, and I...I just wanted to say it.” Waverly admitted. She had spent long months thinking about how she wanted to spend the rest of her life with Nicole. How she couldn’t see anything else but that anymore, honestly. Saying it was just affirmation at this point.

“You know what I think of sometimes?” asked Nicole.

“What’s that?”

“How in some cultures you can just say that you’re married, and you’re married. Everyone is so nonchalant these days about who they’re with: their boyfriend or girlfriend, their partner, their mate, piece of official paper be damned. And I can say it right now, and I’d be married to you, in my heart. Hell, I am already yours, fully and completely. I’ve been yours from the moment I thought you could love me, Waverly. I am yours now and forevermore.”

Waverly took the lead now, her thumbs brushing Nicole’s cheeks, her eyes driving her solemn truth.

“You keep making me want things that I would have never considered before falling in love with you, Nicole. I can marry you; we can go today. You say when and I am there, my love.”

Nicole pulled Waverly tight against her and kissed her long and deep until they both were out of breath. Then Nicole measured out her words when they had both gathered air into their lungs again. “I see our future everywhere.”

Waverly’s lips turned up in a sly smile. “Me too. Yesterday I saw my wife talking to the elderly couple musing about how she had found her own soulmate. I know it was just really chit-chat, but there the three of you were, talking about how Edith & Bill had gone to Paris in 1953 and you felt like that was a fine spot to celebrate a honeymoon.”

“You were in Paris two months ago, babe…”

“But I wasn’t with you. It wasn’t our honeymoon.”

“It can be.”

“I don’t need Paris. I need tiny cabins in the fall in Hope Valley and you saying we can get married today if I want to.”

“We can…” Nicole whispered, but Waverly just kissed her cheek and continued.

“I need festivals and afternoon siestas in the sun and…”

“…you wandering off to get your ruddy cheeks painted with our little girl,” Nicole remembered in awe.

“…or you playing peekaboo with our son,” Waverly said as she sighed deeply at the way her heart seized at the thought of their children followed by how only a day earlier she had feared she would miss things because Nicole would cart their kids off to brunch with their friends. “Do you hate that I’m not an early riser? Will you take the kids to brunch without me?”

Nicole face broke into a soft pattern of confusion and amazement. “Oh honey, I assumed brunch means we all sleep in…or you know mom and mama act like they’re sleeping in when they’re actually gettin’ it on really quietly so as not to wake the kids,” she winked and then gave a gentle kiss to the corner of Waverly’s mouth.

“Okay…” Waverly answered, her fears assuaged at the fundamental explanation of how Nicole saw their future, so simple and yet so divine, an easy assertion of how nothing was ever going to be without Waverly again, never left behind.

“We haven’t talked about that a lot,” mentioned Nicole, “having kids.”

“It was a heavy subject to talk about when I was on the other side of the world.”

“It was.”

“I think…” Waverly inhaled deeply before continuing, “…I think it’s too important to decide on this morning, but we should talk about it when this case is over, when I’m home for more than a few weeks at a time, okay?”

“Sounds like a plan,” Nicole gingerly rejoined, a grin belying the serious topic they had suddenly arrived on.

“But I think…” Waverly bit her lip in concentration, shaking her head subconsciously when her decision was made, “I think we should definitely get a dog.”

“Yes!” Nicole pumped her fist in triumph.

“When…” Waverly clarified warily, “When I’m actually living in Berkeley again, maybe after we get married.”

“So you **_are_ ** going to marry me someday, Ms. Earp? We’ll have long happy lives and grow old together?”

“Oh, Ms. Haught, forever ain’t half the time I want to spend with you. We’re just getting started.”

Waverly threaded her hands into fiery red hair as she pulled Nicole as close as possible, their faces glowing with delight as they brushed lips before fortifying their future plans with a thorough kiss.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for alway loving me & supporting me, and for reminding me that I'm capable, Chuck. This one was for you. :)


End file.
